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$20 million in construction contracts will be underway

September 9, 2006

by Chelle Delaney: Quay County Sun

It’s estimated that almost $20 million in building projects have been
started or will be started within a year in Tucumcari, said a city
planning official.

Two truck stop-plazas are already planned at exit 333 and I-40, and three
motels are either under construction or being planned at the 334 and 332
exits at I-40, said Tucumcari Project Coordinator and Zoning Administrator
Yvette Fazekas.

“With the motels, the two truck stops and the two government offices,
we’re going to be covered in sites for a year,” she said.
As well as adding to the city’s tax base, Fazekas said, “it should bring
growth towards the city.”

The new development should help existing and new businesses develop from
I-40 along Route 66 and from I-40 along First Street toward the city’s
downtown area.

Also, as the First Street road improvement project comes to a close, there
will be additional jobs from the new construction projects and then
eventual full-time jobs in the hotels, she said.

The latest project to receive city approval is a four-story Sleep Inn and
Suites at 3507 Tucumcari Blvd., said Fazekas who signed off on the project
on Aug. 30. The Sleep Inn will be almost across the street from the
Holiday Inn.

Although the project still has to be approved by the state, it’s planned
to have 66 rooms on a 1.07 acre site, according to plans filed by Danny
Patel for Roshan Lodging Inc.

The estimated construction cost of the Sleep Inn is $2.86 million,
according to the plans.

Another hotel project is a 66-room La Quinta Inn and Suites that is up for
preliminary review, Fazekas said.

It will have three stories and be built at 2516 South Adams, across the
street from the McDonald’s restaurant and on the same side of the street
as Trigg Memorial Hospital, she said. The general contractor for the
project, owned by the Allied Hotel Group, LLC, is Nitin Bhakta of
Tucumcari.

Already under construction is an 81-room Holiday Inn Express which is
slated to open in Spring 2007. Bhakta is also involved in the development
of that project.

Last month, Love’s truck stops announced it will undergo a major expansion
at its current location and build a new $4.5 million truck stop at it
Mountain Road site and I-40.

And the Flying J announced it would build a truck plaza that would cost
between $4 and 6 million on Mountain Road, across the street from Love’s.